Poetry. African American Studies. Women's Studies. BRIEF EVIDENCE OF HEAVEN: POEMS FROM THE LIFE OF ANNA MURRAY DOUGLASS by M. Nzadi Keita imagines how free-born, illiterate Anna Murray Douglass, wife to Frederick Douglass, the most vibrant black writer/orator of the 19th century, saw the world as an independent woman, mother, and an abolitionist in her own right. Poet Sonia Sanchez wrote the introduction. "BRIEF EVIDENCE OF HEAVEN...a poetic meditation on biography...joins a new tradition of African American poetry. Place Keita's name alongside A. Van Jordan, Marilyn Nelson, Brenda Marie Osbey and Nathasha Trethewey. These talented poets link history to rivers and dreams."--E. Ethelbert Miller, critic and author of The Fifth Inning "This is a history deftly crafted, enhanced by the formidable skills of a poet who floods this necessary story with light."--Patricia Smith, author of BLOOD DAZZLER (Coffee House Press, 2008)